The School of Architecture of the Universidad de Puerto Rico will host a lecture and the exhibition of WAI Architecture Think Tank the 25th of January of 2012. WAI’s presentation will open the Lecture series of the School of Architecture that this academic semester will include Thom Mayne, Cameron Sinclair, Kieran-Timberlake, Juddy Kinnard, Alan Balfour, Jorge Silvetti-Rodolfo Machado, Takaharu Tezuka, and Javier Sanchez.

The lecture will be open to the public and will be followed by the discussion and the opening of What About It? / UPR Exhibition.

The ARCHIZINES exhibition held in the Architectural Association in London that featured 60 contemporary architectural publications from around the world presented the creators and editors of the magazines through a series of video interviews displayed in IPads. The series of questions presented a unique opportunity to display the different perspectives and conditions that fuel contemporary architectural intelligence today, and to discuss the influence of printed matter in a digitalized world.

What is the relationship between architecture and publishing?

Cruz: We think that there are two kind of (architectural) publishing. One that is more oriented to publicity and marketing, and that’s the one that we have plenty of, publishing a lot of images, a lot of not very critical texts, and it responds more to the market. It is not necessarily very critical with itself. And then on the other hand, we have another kind of publishing that is the one that is concerned with the framing of ideas. How to make these ideas permanent? And it’s the one that was used by Adolf Loos, by Le Corbusier, and the CIAM during modernism, and Archigram, the Metabolists, in the sixties. And Koolhaas. We’ve been losing it since the economic boom in the 90’s, when everything was getting built and there was not a very strong culture of rethinking what people were doing. And I think that relationship between the publishing of ideas is very important for architecture to create a database and a background for the future work of the people that write the texts and for the people that reads them. And for students, and for the professionals. It is what carries the discipline forward.

How do you edit architecture?

Cruz: In order to edit architecture, you got to provide architecture with tools with which you can edit it. The more tools you have, the more options you will have to find ways to edit architecture. It could be publishing, texts, it could be narrative architecture, it could be filmmaking, it could be music.

We always like to put emphasis on these two speeds of editing. One is really slow, building architecture or the construction of architecture. How can you edit architecture through a really wide period of time through what you are building? And the other one is all these simultaneous tools, like magazines, books and movies, and other kinds of media.

If we put an example, we always like to quote from the Modernists, because they were perhaps the strongest ideological period of recent architecture. And if we see Le Corbusier, how he went from his early houses to hardcore modernist aesthetics, and how he detached himself from that period and then started experimenting with the plastics of the building, and how he developed simultaneously these set of tools that set the parameters for the future of the practice like his first texts, more doctrinal texts, L'esprit nouveau, and the texts in which the CIAM bases its doctrines, and then poetry, painting, sculpture, and other kinds of mediums. And we can see how important is to provide these tools because then you can set the parameters on which you are going to set your practice after. How does people that are following you and looking at what you are doing, like the students and professionals, and academics, they can see the development, and then architecture gets edited all the time.

Nathalie: A way to edit architecture is by the process in which you produce architecture and express yourself and express your ideas, so if you use these kinds of medium, like for example filmmaking, collage, theoretical texts, research, all different kinds of tools that are not just design oriented, then you come by editing your ideas and your approach, and then you can express a much more broader expression, or idea of the meaning of architecture.

What is the role of printed matter in the digital age?

Nathalie: Printed matter in the digital age really help us to mark a point in time, and physically produce a material that will encapsulate the statements or concepts you want to develop, in this book or publication. Compare to more digital era where maybe for the user is more difficult to gather or to get what you’re looking for because you don’t know where to look for. You have so many information, that if you have printed matter, it’s all gathered in one material you can always keep, and refer to it in time. (Printed matter) it’s also a time issue, it’s something more permanent, that will not change, that you can always use as reference. Also, as a user, printed matter, will allow you to really experience it with your own speed compared maybe to the internet or even a documentary, and all these digital products that have their own speed. The printing issue will always give you, as a user, the freedom to interact with it at your own speed, in your own order.

How are architectural publications changing?

Cruz: Architecture publication in itself hasn’t change too much. If you consider the history of architecture publications maybe in the last hundred years, we have, as we said before, two kinds of publications, ones that are more market-oriented, and the other ones that are statements in printed matter. But has changed a lot are the mediums of diffusion of architectural information. For example, we can quote our case. We come straight out of our blog, which is a really inexpensive way to get information gathered. And then you gain notoriety through the publication of the blog, people know your work, and eventually you end up printing that stuff, because in the end you still believe in the permanent power of the printed matter.

But, otherwise that wouldn’t happen because if we look at the architectural discipline which is very elitist, and is a small society, and is very secluded. If you don’t know anybody from a publisher, or if your not connected with any school would be very difficult to find an outlet where you can get your ideas diffused. And then, we’re not associated with any of this, but then we find these new technologies would help us to present our ideas to a bigger and wider public. And then, some people quote you on another website, for example, eventually you end up in a magazine, and then other people meet you, and know you, and know your work, and basically without having any physical presence, you get your work known, and then it becomes part, embedded, a new branch of the architectural publications, with all these digital material.

Nathalie: This new dinamic helps to break a bit the pattern that exists, that was very like, publishing, Architecture publications was quite elitist, as you said already, it was reserved to more academic people, or people who already have a lot of experience in the architectural practice, so in a way the digital era helped a lot of people, young people, to access to this architectural world, of contemporary architecture, and opened a lot of new opportunities for a lot of different people.

International online Critical Archive of Architecture The ArchHive has released an online interview realized to WAI Architecture Think Tank. The interview looks at WAI’s conceptual origins, the publication of the WAIzine, and questions the current position of WAI in the architectural scene.

More information on The ArchHive:The ArchHive is an online magazine about criticism of architecture. It shows every day projects and creative products from the fresh stuff, to the cameos from the forgotten past, along with experts and scholars’ analysis and comments.

WAI Lecture and Exhibition at Tsinghua UniversityWhat About It? WAI Architecture Think Tank Solo exhibition was showcased at exhibition hall of the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University in Beijing. As part of the SA Forum, WAI also offered lecture that was followed by an intense discussion on Thursday, December 15 .

The exhibition presented 14 projects, story boards, and publications designed by WAI since its foundation in 2008. The work of WAI ranges from Theoretical Texts, to Graphic Narratives in Magazines format, to Narrative Architectures, to urban and architectural projects.

The SA Forum is an initiative to enable independent exchange and interaction at Tsinghua University. It was first initiated in 2010 by Martijn de Geus and is now jointly hosted by the Graduate Student Union at the School of Architecture, and it’s EPMA Program (English Program for Master in Architecture)

Post(card) Ideological IconsWhat About revisiting the hardcore shapes of the avant-garde?

It has been almost a century since the air was heavily saturated with the combustible gas of ideology. Almost a hundred years have passed since everything from film,throughartand architecture, to urbanism was susceptibletotheslightestfriction in the atmosphere sparking endless manifestoes and multiple visions of the perennial “new beginning”. But what happens when the ideological fire that fuels urbanismis extinguished, andinits place just smoke remains? What is left after the idealistic energy of the avant-garde has vanished and we are left with necrophilic icons of dead ideologies? Why aren’t we able to see the striking similarities and contrasting disparities between the avatars of yesterday’s ideological urbanism and today’s pop-architectural icons?In the twenties imaginarytautwires, steel trusses, and structural concrete gave form to the muscular monuments of a Potemkinesqueavant-garde. Utopia had a shape. First, it looked like a steel tower spiraling hastily towards the sky, then like a leaningtribune for Lenin, then it took the shape ofasky hook fearlessly cantilevering above the debris of the old city, and of a flying city, soaring in circles weightlessly through the firmament. Not only had the avant-garde announced a victory over the sun, but it promised to use urbanism to melt into air all the solid problems of society.

But,at the point when all possible sorts of fantastic operations on the city were about to be orchestrated, the urban intelligentsia crashedheadlong intoan ideological wall.If the dreams of the avant-garde werean improbable mission when their idealistic nostalgia was at its peak, it became almost impossible for them to succeed with a looming economic meltdown, asphyxiating ideological persecutions, and the authorities’ sudden aesthetic preference for neo-classical kitsch—who can forget Boris Iofan’s cake-shaped tower? In the midst of the suffocating pessimism of the sociopolitical atmosphere of the post-war, the avant-garde managed to find an ideological plateau, and develop in it one last (desperate?) plan. With the catastrophic arrival of the Second World War, Utopia had to change shape. If before the war, urbanism was about tabula rasa, and the ideal new cities were to substitute the old urban fabric with ideological monuments, the new urbanism promised to leave the old cities untouched. The new avant-garde proposed to disguise its ideal cities as colossal buildings that could be developedad infinitum; urbanism as endless architecture.The second—and last— coming of ideological urbanism in the 20thcentury happened fifty years ago. Aroused by the promising future of the new communication, transportation and construction technologies, the new forms of urbanism were grafted around metabolic systems of urbanization, prefabricated instant cities, and Megastructures.

Anew ontology of urban forms was created after a whole new cosmos of ideal cities took over the collective intelligence of urbanism. The image of urbanism suffered a dramatic transformation as ideological cities hovered like weightless blankets above the Champs-Élysées, mirror-coated monuments roamed endlessly through the streets of Graz, pixilated buildings, helix-shaped towers, and mushroom-cloud megaliths metabolically proliferated all over Tokyo, geodesic domes sequestered complete areas of Manhattan island, and entire cities were pictured strolling over the surface of the world’s oceans.

Yet again, so suspicious were the proposals of an avant-garde so detached from reality, so economically unfeasible, so ideologically naïve, that they never found (outside of Japan) any possible application or a client devout enough to believe in their projects.Today’s generation of media-wise, economically proficient, politically correct architects have decided to resurrect the shapes of the most subversive and energetic forms of urbanism of the last century. In the form of an opportunistic architecturalcadavre-exquis(started by one, finished by the other) contemporary urbanismhas,under the slogan “the stronger the ideal, the sharper the icons” unearthed some of the most the striking proposals of the avant-garde and repurposed them as harmless and ready to consume coffee-table images.

Like when an archeological discovery loses its history-rich past to the frivolity of the museum walls, the icons of the ideological avant-garde have been sterilized, reupholstered and servedup to an image-starvingaudience that devours them as visual gourmet whileoverlooking their original potential. Prosthetic appendixes of ideologies that expired decades ago, these architectures now captivate the flash of the cameras and win the praise of the critics due to their bold shapes, iconic presence, and their historical ideological references. Exhaustively photographed, printed, blogged, discussed, awarded, these urban forms have metamorphosed from being the icons of a revolution to being the pretty faces of architectural mass media; hardcore urban ideology as architectural soft porn.

Post(cards)Agitational provocations in the form of architecturalpost(cards), the following images have been structured to stimulate the critical understanding of ideological urbanism, to recognize the use of iconographic architecture as itsdeus ex machinaand to identify the recycling of its most intense proposals by contemporary architecture.By meticulously selecting two formally related buildings and grafting them together like pictures of an alternative reality, the images have the potential to expose two opposed instances in the evolution of urbanism; first as ideological enterprises, then as harmless architectural icons. Onthe left side of thepost(cards)stand the icons of the urban intelligentsia. Product of their zeitgeist, these buildings share an intense and turbulent history that saw them rise from the collective nostalgia of the ideological optimistic years of the avant-garde, onlythento be crumbled away by the inexorable forces of modernity like sand castles in front of a tsunami. The images display symptomatic manifestations of hardcore ideological urbanism in the form of constructivist sky-hooks, non-objective architectons, and metabolist helicoids.

Standing at the opposite side of the image, a series of contemporary architectures strikingly resemble their ideological predecessors. Like organs without a body, these icons’ lack of any clear ideological manifesto, put into evidence how contemporary architecture not only borrows its shapes, but that through image overexposure, and over use, neutralizes the inherent potential of previous forms of ideological urbanism. The new icons offer no hidden subversive messages, state no unprecedented manifestoes, and represent no underground ideologies. Themore they become infatuated with their own image, the more they become like Architectural postcards.

As part of the SA Forum, WAI will be presenting its solo exhibition What About It? from the 10 to the 17 of December, and offering a lecture and discussion the 15 of the same month in the prestigious School of Architecture of Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The SA Forum is an initiative to enable independent exchange and interaction at Tsinghua University. It was first initiated in 2010 by Martijn de Geus and is now jointly hosted by the Graduate Student Union at the School of Architecture, and it’s EPMA-Program (English Program for Master in Architecture). The Topic of the 2011/12 academic year is ‘Towards a Future Habitat.’

An article about the origins of WAI has been featured in the “Por Dentro” section of Puerto Rico’s main newspaper El Nuevo Dia. Written by Eileen Rivera Esquilin, the article and interview published Saturday 19 of November highlights the journey of WAI through Europe, China, and its relationship with Puerto Rico.

For more information please go to the online version of the article in endi.com.

The last copies of the WAIzine, and the Catalog of the first solo exhibition of WAI have been acquired and are on sale on William Stout Architectural Books. The famous bookshop has two stores in San Francisco and one in Berkeley.

“William Stout Architectural Books carries over 20,000 titles on two floors in the fields of architecture, art, urban planning, graphic and industrial design, furniture and interior design, and landscape architecture. For over thirty years, twenty in the current location, it has been a vital resource for architecture and design books, carrying American and international titles, both in and out of print.”[1]

The Archizines exhibition opened successfully to the public with a series of discussions in the Architectural Association in London. The show that displays 60 contemporary architectural publications will be on display until the 14th of December. Curated by Elias Redstone, Archizines finds an outlet for the electrifying energy behind the small magazines that still have faith in the power of printed architecture in an age anesthetized by redundant pixels.

Coinciding again with a global crisis —as in the sixties— Archizines marks the renaissance of a critical architectural youth that through printed, stapled, and bind pages claims for a space to express its ideas. After the few remaining “radical” magazines from the sixties ended up as commercial publications, a new faith is put on the experimental nature of the fanzine.

WAI’s “What About the Aesthetics of Dirt?” has been featured in the 26th issue of On Site Magazine. The piece works as a form of manifesto calling for a re-interpretation of dirt as a concept in the design process. The magazine includes articles by Infranet Lab, the initiators of [Bracket] Magazine, Joshua Craze, Kate Forde curator of Dirt, the filthy reality of everyday life, John Szot, Chloe Roubert, Kenneth Hayes, Ksenia Kagner, and more…

What About It? Part 1 will be available as a public resource in The National Art Library, a public reference library for the study of design, fine and decorative arts at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The WAIzine that forms part of the ARCHIZINES exhibition, and research project on contemporary architecture and urbanism magazines will be along books and manuscripts concerning international fine arts.

A limited edition numbered and signed series (of 50 copies) of Cities of the Avant-Garde (100cm x 70cm) is available on request. The image includes some of the most important urban proposals of the 20th and 21st century, and proposes a perspective on the future of urbanism.

Architecture is a path, a process, a journey... it is never achieved. You can get to architecture but you can’t have architecture. You can aim at Architecture, but it will always remain elusive… Architecture transforms, changes, transmutes. Architecture is in texts, in collages, in images, in renders, in photography, in models, in drawings, in buildings…but Architecture is not text, collages, images, renders, photography, models drawings or buildings. Architecture exists in different mediums, but the mediums are not Architecture.

Architecture is an ephemeral state. Architecture is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.Architecture can delimit space, but space is not architecture. Architecture excludes, discriminates… At the same time, Architecture embraces and welcomes… Architecture doesn’t have form, or texture, or materials, or building methods… A building can be architecture, but Architecture can’t be a building.

You can get a license to build, but you cannot get a license to do architecture. You can build all your life, write infinite texts, draft from the dawn until the morning, and still never reach architecture. Architecture could be poetry, but poetry can’t be Architecture. Architecture can be art, but art can’t be Architecture. Architecture can be in a discussion, but a discussion is not Architecture. Architecture is a mixture of elements, but those elements are not Architecture.

Architecture doesn’t win prizes… buildings do, practices do, architects do, publications do… Architecture doesn’t need curriculum vitae or a recommendation letter or a positive review from a critic… Architecture is indifferent to the public praise and the expert’s views.

Architecture is hard to understand. Architecture is mostly misunderstood. People talk about architecture, teach architecture, preach architecture, but they don’t know what Architecture really is… Architecture can’t be taught it school. Architecture can’t be taught at a design institute. Architecture can’t be taught at an office. Architecture can’t be taught. Architecture can just be learned.

Architecture is a process that comes from within… Architecture might seem like an end, but Architecture is always a beginning.

What About It? Part 1 has been chosen as one of the 60 fanzines, magazines and journals to be featured in the Archizines exhibition in the Architectural Association in London from November 5 until December 14, 2011. The WAIzine will be showcased alongside publications of 20 countries around the globe.

The Archizines exhibition will feature printed issues of the magazines, and video interviews of the creators of the publications.

“Launched by Elias Redstone as an online research project in January 2011, with art direction by Folch Studio, Archizines celebrates and promotes a recent resurgence of alternative and independent architectural publishing. From the photocopied newsletter to beautifully bound magazines, each fanzine is a creative platform for the subject and the author. Together they provide a rich and unique window into how people relate to the spaces we inhabit.

Across the world, publications are cultivating architectural commentary, criticism and research. Bucking the current trend for digital media, architects, artists and academics are producing printed matter that adds a dynamic, and often radical, voice to architectural discourse.

Each magazine will be on show, while their authors will be represented in video interviews talking about their work.

An accompanying catalogue, published by Bedford Press, explores the relationship between architecture and publishing with contributions from Pedro Gadanho, Rob Wilson, Mimi Zeiger and other editors.”

Opening Saturday 3 of September What About It? WAI Architecture Think Tank solo Exhibition presented for the first time the research work, architectural and urban experiments on 798 Art District, the art epicenter of China.

What About It?

WAI Architecture Think Tank is a Workshop for Architecture Intelligentsia founded in Brussels in 2008 by architects, artists and writers Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia. Currently based in Beijing, WAI focuses on the understanding and execution of architecture through a panoramic approach, from groundbreaking theoretical texts, to critical narrative architectures, innovative publications and exhibitions, and intelligent urban and architectural projects. WAI asks What About It?

What About the Foam Manifesto?

WAI is about foam ideas. A product of a moment in time, WAI surges when thinking is being “overlooked” and the abrasive emptiness of imagery overflow and empty foam shapes threatens to saturate the architectural domain. WAI dares to challenge foam models with foam ideas. WAI proposes a subversion of the foam. If for the Pop-Architectures of today foam is just a material to make shapes, for WAI foam is a structure that generates endless cognitive connections. Our visual world is being bombarded by a constant lack of substance. WAI proposes substance behind the images. WAI proposes substance with the images. WAI is hypothetical. WAI dares to propose. WAI embraces discussions, dialogue and arguments. WAI dares to think. WAI is a Think Tank for the contemporary City and its Architecture. WAI is a Think Tank for the contemporary Architecture and its City. More and more, more frivolity is pontificated, and less substance is produced. WAI proposes a theory of alchemism— to transform quantity into thoughts, shapes into ideas, frivolity into substance. The more that is produced the more WAI thinks. WAI worries about triviality and inquires about sophistication. WAI is a Workshop for Architecture Intelligentsia. WAI asks…What About It?

What About Wall Stalker (Video)?

What About Le Poème de WAI (Video)

What About Lectures?

What About Internship?

Applicants interested should submit an individual Portfolio in a pdf file (5mb max, no online links), CV and cover letter with “internship” in the subject tocontact@wai-architecture.com. Candidates should be familiar with the theoretical background of WAI, posses a very strong overall knowledge of contemporary architecture and have critical thinking skills.

Applicants should have design proficiency and good written and visual communication capabilities. WAI is a contemporary think tank of architecture, applicants should be prepared to work in an unusual environment. Students are invited to apply.

Requirements:-Proficiency in written and spoken English is a must. Chinese is a plus.-Excellent model making skills-Strong graphic and design capabilities- Design software knowledge-Critical knowledge of contemporary architecture

What About Reading Us?

What about the Authors?

Nathalie Frankowskiis a French Architect, Artist, and Author who graduated in 2008 from the department of Architecture, Art and Philosophy at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette with a Diplome d’État d’Architecture option research. Her final project “It Feels Like Home: Chez-soi entre nature et densité” received the special mention from the jury.In 2008 she co-founded WAI a contemporary think tank for architecture and the city. Previous professional and academic experience includes international publications, research, film making, design workshops and working in Belgium, The Netherlands, France, and China.

Cruz García is a Puerto Rican Architect, Artist, and Author who graduated in 2008 from the Universidad de Puerto Rico with a Master Degree in Architecture after earning the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for outstanding leadership and the Henry Adams Medal for the Highest Degree. His research thesis about Narrative Architectures from the 1920’s to the 70’s earned him the PBDT scholarship from the main research institution in the UPR. In 2008 he co-founded WAI a contemporary think tank for architecture and the city. Previous professional and academic experience includes international publications, research, teaching, lectures, and working in Belgium, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, USA, France, and China.